To What End?

[Irish villain]

His stuttering half season will have given a few admirers the jitters I would imagine?

[cheltenhamlion]

I did hear a whisper there was to be a few bob available in the Summer and it was not reliant on flogging Benteke.

[PaulWinch again]

I did hear a whisper there was to be a few bob available in the Summer and it was not reliant on flogging Benteke.

Well let's hope so, because we need to start adding quality now if we're going to progress.

[Richard E]

I think there Will be a £7-10 million playmaker signed in the summer to excite us and it will be done early. The benefits of signing one available this window. Weren't strong enough to pursue a deal with an eye on a summer target. We will start the season at home and chalk up a resounding win and finally the corner will have been turned.

Indeed, a 4-0 opening day home win against man utd will do nicely

Only 4-0?? Where's your ambition? This just shows how far we've fallen etc etc...

[Ad@m]

Net spend of £15-20m is the sensible guess, that's been the average since Lerner arrived and there is no reason to think otherwise.  How that money gets spent is far more important, 3-4 okore/benteke style buys and we'll look a lot more capable.

This is what I think will happen.  I think the difference to the last two summers will be that because the wage bill has largely been sorted we'll be able to look at a better quality of player this summer.  So like you say, 3-4 players with that money, rather than 8-9.

I also don't think Benteke will go unless he's blows the World Cup apart.  Like others have said, I think his barren spell will have lowered the price clubs will be willing to pay to a point where it's lower than the price we'll accept.

[brian green]

Nothing has happened today which puts to bed the idea that the club will be sold sooner rather than later.   My son put if far better than I could when he said Lerner is not a football fan and he does not come to enough games for it to be a hobby.   What reason does he have for not selling the club?

[Ad@m]

Nothing has happened today which puts to bed the idea that the club will be sold sooner rather than later.   My son put if far better than I could when he said Lerner is not a football fan and he does not come to enough games for it to be a hobby.   What reason does he have for not selling the club?

Nothing's happened today to say that the club will be sold sooner rather than later either.  As for your son's comment, surely the fact he watches every single game on a live video feed and that to date he's spent £300m on something which very few people have made money on ever would suggest he might be just a little bit of a football fan?

[Toronto Villa]

Nothing has happened today which puts to bed the idea that the club will be sold sooner rather than later.   My son put if far better than I could when he said Lerner is not a football fan and he does not come to enough games for it to be a hobby.   What reason does he have for not selling the club?

Given that he's likely forked out more of his personal wealth on Aston Villa than all of our previous chairmans combined, I'd say he cares plenty about Aston Villa. It's a little tiring to keep hearing on just about every thread that he doesn't give a shit just because he doesn't come to games. Like a broken record.

[Villa in Denmark]

To put some of the financial debates into a little perspective, over 10 years Abramovich has invested just short of £1billion (including spend on training facilities and initial purchase),and last summer converted the remaining £700M of debt for equity.

The Mansoors have spent north of £500M + purchase costs since 2008 over and above City's own revenue streams to give a total spend of just under £1 billion.

That's what we're up against.  The only way to beat that, even with significant support from Randy is to significantly overperform consistently relative to the levels invested,and progress that way, to a point where revenues can support a buying from the upper echelons.

The quoted figures are from a cursory Google search for Chelsea or Man City  spending.

[dave.woodhall]

To put some of the financial debates into a little perspective, over 10 years Abramovich has invested just short of £1billion (including spend on training facilities and initial purchase),and last summer converted the remaining £700M of debt for equity.

The Mansoors have spent north of £500M + purchase costs since 2008 over and above City's own revenue streams to give a total spend of just under £1 billion.

That's what we're up against.  The only way to beat that, even with significant support from Randy is to significantly overperform consistently relative to the levels invested,and progress that way, to a point where revenues can support a buying from the upper echelons.

The quoted figures are from a cursory Google search for Chelsea or Man City  spending.

And it still took Citeh three seasons to get from ninth into the Champions League.

[pauliewalnuts]

To put some of the financial debates into a little perspective, over 10 years Abramovich has invested just short of £1billion (including spend on training facilities and initial purchase),and last summer converted the remaining £700M of debt for equity.

The Mansoors have spent north of £500M + purchase costs since 2008 over and above City's own revenue streams to give a total spend of just under £1 billion.

That's what we're up against.  The only way to beat that, even with significant support from Randy is to significantly overperform consistently relative to the levels invested,and progress that way, to a point where revenues can support a buying from the upper echelons.

The quoted figures are from a cursory Google search for Chelsea or Man City  spending.

We're not going to beat that, not a prayer. Just like Newcastle and Spurs and Everton aren't going to beat it.

The problem is, whilst we're not going to beat it, we should be a lot closer to it than we are now. The last few years, the list of clubs we compare ourselves against has become the likes of Stoke, West Ham, Sunderland. The strugglers, basically.

Over that same period, step by step, even on here, expectations have been pointed so far downwards that we frequently see people talking about our progression in terms of "we're not going to go down, we'll make 40 points easily...".

That's what the problem is. Not that we're not competing with clubs who spend 1-2bn in a few years. Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal aren't doing that, or are struggling like fuck to just about manage it. Our problem is that we're increasingly ensconcing ourselves as one of the bottom feeding clubs in the league.

Look five years ago, and we had several players who other teams towards the upper end of the league would covet. By comparison, how many of our players would be coveted by other clubs now?

[pauliewalnuts]

Nothing has happened today which puts to bed the idea that the club will be sold sooner rather than later.   My son put if far better than I could when he said Lerner is not a football fan and he does not come to enough games for it to be a hobby.   What reason does he have for not selling the club?

Given that he's likely forked out more of his personal wealth on Aston Villa than all of our previous chairmans combined, I'd say he cares plenty about Aston Villa. It's a little tiring to keep hearing on just about every thread that he doesn't give a shit just because he doesn't come to games. Like a broken record.

Not really.

If he'd never come to games, then maybe you'd have a point, but the fact is, for a year or two, or more, when he bought us, they were here all the time. They popped up at away fixtures up north to lower league clubs in the league cup. They were on here, all the time. He was over here several times a year.

Then suddenly, he stopped. At the same time the financial cut backs started.

It's not so much "he doesn't bother coming to matches" as "he used to, but now he doesn't bother" - two totally different things.

Not only that, but it was about the same time we stopped hearing about things like Proud History, Bright Future. The same time we stopped seeing things like the club advertising all over town - I know that sounds lame, but if you were here, you'd have noticed it, we started acting like we really did own the city. The city really was ours.

When they weren't doing stuff like that, they were on here, telling us every ten minutes that they were here and would be so through the rough as well as the smooth - they went out of the way to tell us that.

All that stopped. At pretty much exactly the time smooth turned to rough.

it's hardly surprising people noticed it, it was pretty hard not to spot the contrast.

[Ad@m]

Look five years ago, and we had several players who other teams towards the upper end of the league would covet. By comparison, how many of our players would be coveted by other clubs now?

Exactly. 5 years ago. Things change quickly in football and we could just as easily be back in that position in 5 years time.

[Dave Clark Five]

I did hear a whisper there was to be a few bob available in the Summer and it was not reliant on flogging Benteke.

Was it a Chinese whisper?

[pauliewalnuts]

Look five years ago, and we had several players who other teams towards the upper end of the league would covet. By comparison, how many of our players would be coveted by other clubs now?

Exactly. 5 years ago. Things change quickly in football and we could just as easily be back in that position in 5 years time.

Only if we spend a lot of money, unfortunately. Certainly more than our spending levels of late, anyway.